For Alice Karangelen

CONTENTS

Dedication

Title Page

Epigraph

The Amusement Machine

The No-Knock

Knickerbocker

Owning Up

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Also by George Pelecanos

Copyright

So if the question is asked, What’s it amount to? the answer comes sliding out easily: It’s just a merry-go-round that stops every now and then for some to get off and others to get on, and no matter how much you pay for your ticket, no matter how many brass rings you snatch, it’s only a matter of time before your place is taken by the next customer emerging from some womb to take the ride. So in the final analysis, it’s merely the process of being taken for a ride, and despite all the bright colors and the hurdy-gurdy music, despite the gleeful yells as the amusement machine goes round and round, the windup is a hole in the ground where the night crawlers get awfully hungry when it rains.

—David Goodis, The Wounded and the Slain